For future Internet of Things market, when the industry is "crazy" predicting how many devices are installed, Silicon Labs is more concerned about "What kind of equipment can the market provide consumers?" Because almost everyone has encountered similar scenarios - a lot of automation equipment that "looks fun, but actually useless".
According to market research reports released by the Global Market Research Consulting Company, the 2015 global intelligent lighting market is $ 3.3 billion, and by 2022, the global intelligent lighting market is expected to reach $ 19.7 billion, 2016 to 2022. The compound annual growth rate is 27%. However, Zigbee, Wi-Fi, Thread, Bluetooth Mesh and other standards have hindered the development of intelligent lighting to a certain extent.
Use equipment to please users
"When we talked to the networking equipment, we should take some time to talk about the netling lighting." Skip Ashton, vice president of Silicon Labs Software Business, believes that the net network lighting is also the most complicated device to make the easiest device to do the most complicated, The highest reliability work. "Lighting manufacturers are very good at combining glass and LED technology to make a variety of bulbs, but for embedded mesh nets (Mesh) and wireless connections are not line, if they don't carefully solve these technical challenges, they will be abandoned by consumers. "
Silicon Labs Software Business Vice President SKIP ASHTON
For future IoT markets, when the industry is "crazy" predicts how many devices are installed, SKIP is more concerned about "What kind of equipment can the market provide consumers?". Because almost everyone has encountered similar scenarios - a lot of automation equipment that "looks fun, but actually useless".
He believes this is a challenge in the growth process of the Internet of Things market, that is, how to use the equipment to please users? Amazon's echo speaker's Echo speaker in SKIP appeared in Skip. It can connect a lot of products with different functions. After the multi-time version is upgraded, it has been able to be user Provide a very easy-to-use experience.
"This is the use of equipment to please users' typical cases. Although echo is still not so perfect, it is not enough to identify accent, but this has made the user's eyes, so Amazon gives 10 million units. Sales quantity. For US markets with 100 million families, 10 million sales have been highly penetrated. "So, Skip said that for chip manufacturers such as Silicon Lab, not only need to provide Chips, modules, development tools and software, also help analyze the causes and solve problems when there is a problem.
NB-IOT and BLE MESH are not suitable for smart lighting
NB-IOT can be said to be the most focused technology on the Internet of Things market. SKIP acknowledges that it will hold a place in a long-distance coverage market, but the power consumption of NB-IOT is 10 times the Bluetooth and 15.4 standards, so this is not necessarily suitable for battery-powered equipment. Another problem is that most of the Internet of Things world is actually just local connection and communication. For example, smart lighting does not need to communicate with the cloud. Although if you connect to the cloud, you can better understand the working status, but actually passed locally. The way to achieve connection and control will be more convenient.
A few months ago, the hackers attacked the US DNS server, which affected many Internet accessories such as Linux cameras, and many Internet websites also had downtime. Skip said that if you use the end-to-end control method from the device to the cloud, the security system, the smart home system will not work without the Internet. "For networked lighting, we hope that switch moves can still work properly without the Internet. Has a cloud connection is a good thing, this can provide more services, but you can't make sure that the equipment is always working, this is a problem. So Our core strategy will be to focus on communications between devices and devices. "
The latest Bluetooth Mesh technology also caused the industry's attention, but SKIP believes that it does not have a rich product in the field of lighting as ZigBee. Because Bluetooth Mesh uses a large stream of flowing mesh instead of the Mesh of the routing method, its working principle is to send data in each node to continuously repeat. The advantage of this approach is easy to use, but scalability is a short board, especially in commercial buildings. In addition, reliability is also a problem because it is easy to appear "" phenomenon when working. For example, there are 15 bulbs in the room, there is no problem with flooding mesh, but if the entire area has hundreds of bulbs, the working status of FLOODING MESH will not be very good.
He also emphasizes the reliability, interoperability and security of the Internet of Things equipment, and believes that Zigbee 3.0 has a 10-year optimization and improvement experience in these aspects. In contrast, new Bluetooth Mesh may encounter some interesting challenges. For example, Bluetooth equipment manufacturers don't have to worry about interoperability, because a smart watch manufacturer is most concerned about, letting your smart watch and my own app, rather than connecting other people's equipment with their own app. Therefore, in this case, the manufacturer has both ends of the communication, and most Bluetooth users have added their own characteristics because the interoperability is limited to my device and my app.
But for Bluetooth Mesh in the family, interoperability is not only limited to my device and my app, but all devices are able to communicate. Skip thinks this is an interesting "concept" change, not technical issues. "Today's Bluetooth dialogue sets the interoperability, consumers must manually set this connection, must set up communication between the phone and the watch, this situation does not have to worry about interoperability. But in the Mesh network?"
The latest developments in the ZigBee / Thread standard
In the past 12 months, the number of new devices obtained from ZigBee certification is mainly from networked lighting and home automation, and the two add up to 75% of the total certification. Only the main concerns of the industry are still Zigbee, thread products have not actually shipped.
The number of new equipment for ZigBee certification is obtained in the past 12 months (as of May 31, 2017)
As can be seen from the list provided by SKIP, the service provider's set-top box has already had a 15.4 connection function, such as Verizon's latest Fios set-top box, COMCAST home access terminal, and Dell's Edge Gateway et al; Household Wi-Fi device Linksys, TP-LINK, Google and Samsung, etc., also added 15.4 connection capabilities in its products provided by the US market. In this year, the three protocols of Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and 15.4 were combined with the three protocols of Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and 15.4, provided to hardware equipment manufacturers; audio and video control equipment, such as Nest control The thermostat, a thermostat, or a camera is a 50-routing collection center because there is a 15.4 wireless connection function. Now everyone is doing a bigger integration, so I can replace some equipment, there is no so many boxes in my home.
The ZigBee Alliance has developed very quickly. In the past 18 months, four companies including Lishaxin Group have joined the Zigbee Federation Board, and the other three are Huawei, Nanjing Terrace and the United States. In addition, Alibaba has also become a member of the Zigbee Alliance in the near future. This shows whether it is a TV operator or Tencent, Alibaba. They all have a tentacles into the family of each consumer. If the device already has 15.4 function, at least they don't have to worry about it when entering the intelligent home market. Cost and complexity.
ZigBee 3.0 is the focus of SKIP emphasizes. Although from the table below, the share of ZigBee 3.0 is small, in the market germination, but because this is the leading manufacturer in the field of ZigBee lighting and home automation, the development prospect is extremely optimistic. . According to his statement, Zigbee 3.0 is relatively simple, easy to use, flexible, and better user experience, interoperability, and compatibility, and more importantly, it is improving safety, such as past 1 Members of the Union in the year completed 156 test items to ensure interoperability.
A variety of wireless protocols coexist
A variety of wireless protocols have coexisted the industry's hot topic, SKIP, specially mentioned the coexistence of Wi-Fi and ZigBee. He said that after a long-term research and a large number of tests, he found that these two protocols will happen in the following items: First, after the two protocols enter the same device, the RF part will conflict with each other; the other is Wi- The transmit power of Fi is as high as 20-30 dBm, often "drowned" Zigbee; three, Wi-Fi always transmit data at a very high speed, accounting for many frequency band resources, the proportion is one degree or even reaches 99%, left to zigbee There is only 1% of the resources so that the latency of the package is possible to affect the user experience.
Their solution is to cooperate between the two through a shared mechanism to prevent excessive packet loss, or interference with each other. This coordination mechanism is implemented in software, one is a switchable manner, and can be restarted and loaded according to user needs; another is dynamic transformation, can be used immediately when working. Conversion of the protocol.
PTA function reduces packet loss
"Designing this multi-protocol product is still very challenging, including how to switch radio frequency with software when practical? How to call different protocol stacks with software? How to set security indicators." Skip believes in actual Running Switching Agreement Stack is not an easy solution to many large semiconductor companies, because the business model they like is that I sent an engineer to help you succeed, but for the Internet application, more Self-optimization, rather than relying on more engineers to provide support, this is the advantage of the software team he led.
In addition, since the same Flash and Memory can be used in different protocols in the multi-protocol chip, the cost of multi-protocol chips will be cheaper than several separate chips. And the multi-protocol chip also brought a lot of new applications, such as one on a piece of Flash can be used to run different protocols at different times, and users can use zigbee to control the bulb, and the Bluetooth beacon can also achieve the Bluetooth beacon function. Develop a convenience and user experience.
Original link: https://www.eeboard.com/news/intelligent-lighting-2/
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